Having joined her family’s international shipping, trading, and finance business, Foremost Group, in 2001, Angela A. Chao (AB 1995, MBA 2001) began her career focusing on the company’s safety management system and vessel security planning. Now, as deputy chairman, she leads the company started by her parents in 1964.

“It’s not about taking over the company business; it’s really about honoring the legacy of my parents. It’s about the spirit of my parents, their value system, and their beliefs. When I joined my parents, my father in particular, in the family companies, it was with this desire to fulfill my parents’ legacy, to honor them in a way that they lived their lives,” Chao says.

She is the youngest of Dr. James Si-Cheng Chao and the late Ruth Mulan Chu Chao’s six daughters, four of whom attended HBS. The Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, currently under construction on the HBS campus, is the result of a gift from a Dr. James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation. The new building will serve as a learning center and social hub for the School’s Executive Education Program.